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BJJ injury rates - safer than "traditional" sports?

3 year(s) ago • 5845 views • 1 replies

Aaron Lones
Aaron Lones
Black belt 3rd degreeVerified13 forum posts1925/1000
3 year(s) ago
Are the injury rates for BJJ training and comp lower than most other martial arts and traditional ballistic sports?

Backstory:
We started a private club at an Elks Lodge here in Portland, OR and had to present to the board to get the free space to train. Years before us, dudes that were into stick fighting had poked some poor guy’s eye out and he sued Elks. So the board was skeptical of “martial arts.”

To start, here's some literature on the injury rates in BJJ versus other sports. I'd love to see what others dig up on this subject.

• Most injuries are fingers and hand or toes - >25% of all injuries and are minor - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.[...]MC5968975/
• Another huge source of injury are skin diseases
• If we remove minor injuries (general pain, jammed joints, bruises, skin injuries) the injury rate is 5.4/1000 hr - this is close to weight training or many other "safe" activities
• 42% of the injuries in jiu jitsu occur with new students/white belts. Another 32% of injuries occur with blue belts.
• Injury rate is less than wrestling, judo, or taekwondo - https://journals.sagepub.[...]20injuries.
• Competition is 9.2 injuries/1000 exposures - basketball has a training rate of 9.8 injuries/1000 exposures and up to 50.4 injuries/1000 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.[...]MC3786241/ and https://journals.sagepub.[...]20injuries.
Slideyfoot [jun]
Slideyfoot [jun]
Black belt 1st degreeVerified1900 forum posts3635/1000
3 year(s) ago
Interesting. I've not been injured all that often since I started grappling in 2003, BJJ in 2006. The brief bit of judo I did (very brief, a handful of lessons) was much more injurious, I found. In BJJ, injuries have largely been from either rolling with bigger guys, leglocks, or both.

Since I stopped rolling with anybody 10kg+ heavier than me (with rare exceptions for friends) a few years ago, my injury rate has gone way down.
Edited 3 year(s) ago

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